


Soho Square

by whilewilde



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King, IT Chapter 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Fluff, I promise it's worth your time, London, M/M, Multi, a reddie epic of book proportions, it's based on an 80s bop so you know it's solid
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-01-27 03:54:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21385669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whilewilde/pseuds/whilewilde
Summary: Helpless and depressed, Richie Tozier moved to London to escape the bad memories of Derry, Maine. Every Monday, like clockwork, he sits on the second bench to his right on Soho Square and writes his book.Eddie Kaspbrak, stranded in London without a passport after a runaway plan gone wrong, finds solitude in Soho Square, hidden away from the hustle and bustle of everyday London workers. Here, on Monday the 26th of November, Richie would meet Eddie, changing his life forever.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, The Losers Club/The Losers Club (IT)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	1. Richie

**Author's Note:**

> Heyo!  
Well, first things first: this is an actual book. That's what it's written as, but with characters familiar enough to my writing style to make it a fan fiction. For that reason, it is slow burn in some aspects, and it's going to be a long journey. Should you wish to support this project, please retweet my pinned tweet on my twitter (whilewilde) or just spread this around. It would mean the world (it has a cover and everything!).  
J.

**1.**

**Richie.**

London wasn’t so pretty as the books had made it out to be in winter, Richie thought to himself as he pulled his jacket closer to him, picking up the pace as he neared Sutton Row. Works of Conan Doyle had promised a grand old town, with History around every corner. Even Baker Street, he couldn’t help but note, was far from similar to 221B. Sherlock Holmes would have been out of place in streets like these.

Richie Tozier, near 6ft (or 6’1 to anyone who asked), black hair cropped short to reveal a receding hairline, seemed far from an ill fit to the ageing businessmen of Westminster or Whitehall. He was of course, not a businessman; not in the traditional sense at least. If anyone had asked, he would have said something between a Civil Servant and a Secretary.

_If_ they asked. No one really asked him anything regardless.

As he crossed the road leading to Soho Square, he couldn’t help but notice how quiet everything was. Located slap bang in the middle of Westminster, the area of the usual hustle and bustle of politicians and workers alike, this place always seemed untouched by time or by human presence. It was as if all the noise in the world had come and stopped, becoming a hushed silence to preserve its delicate atmosphere. So delicate was the nature of the Square that even the natural order of London businessmen and businesswomen could not bring itself to penetrate it. As if everyone in the world had a secret agreement that it should remain untouched.

Aggressive winters and scorching hot summers could pass within the space of months, and still it remained the same. Great writers and poets were born and had died, societies crumbled and Prime Ministers were replaced, and whilst the name changed from King Square, still Soho Square remained exactly as it had been centuries before.

For this reason alone, Richie took a liking to it. He had been through life always seemingly being the ‘loser’, as if everyone else was in on the joke that he had missed out on, because he was born too late, or too ‘wrong’. When the noise of the office, or the noise of the streets that he called home had become too much, he could come to Soho Square and know that he would be totally and completely engulfed in silence.

Passing St Patrick’s Church, he would take a left, and then a right, finally resting to sit on the 2nd bench on his right. It always had to be the 2nd, as it was the bench dedicated to the late singer, Kirsty MacColl.

The engraving on the bench itself read: ‘_One day I’ll be waiting there, no empty bench on Soho Square’_ and Richie would admit (if anyone cared enough to ask his opinion) that he hadn’t the foggiest what it meant, but for some reason it made his heart heavy. It filled him with this uncontrollable sadness, partly because he knew that he would always be waiting for _someone else, _partly because the bench was empty no more.

As rested his arm on the armrest, he allowed his hands to feel the tired wood, worn out from the years of other people just like Richie using it. Tired was a good way to describe what Richie was.

Like the bench, he had been used far too much, and he felt as if body couldn’t carry the weight of all that he felt. After years of shit friends, toxic relationships and depression, he began to feel nothing at all. No longer could he be accused of feeling too much, or too little. His eyes didn’t even seem as bright as they once were, bags under his eyes were no longer a rare occurrence and his diet had become exclusively alcohol.

Richie placed his head in his hands as he thought about what his mother would think of him if she could see him now. He was exactly like his father. Although, his father, he thought, had good parts of him (although Richie subscribed to the idea that no one was completely bad or completely good, but rather a messy mixed up combination of both).

Richie’s father, an old military type man, would beat Richie black and blue, but within the same breath he would tell Richie that it was just so he didn’t misbehave again. He would scold his son for crying, telling him to ‘man up’ and giving him a clip ‘round the ear, but he would occasionally take Richie to the park, or spend hours listening to records with him.

In fact, most of Richie’s own collection belonged to his father, and whenever he listened to the crooning of Sinatra, he could only picture the good times with his dad.

Sometimes, when his friends bothered to ask about his childhood, they would frown quietly when they heard Richie recount his memories of his dear old dad. The bold ones would even offer a ‘what the fuck?’ And express concern for Richie, but to him that always felt like an insult.

Wentworth Tozier wasn’t a bad man, he would reiterate, but he had just fallen off the wagon again. Or he had just had a bad day. Or he was just arguing with mom.

To his friends, it seemed like an endless list of excuses from a scared little boy in a mans body, who never really wanted to upset his father, even in death. To Richie, he was just choosing to forgive, and to only see the good in people. Wether it was the right way to cope or not, it was entirely and completely his.

So, he found himself, 5 years after his death completely and utterly torn up by it. It was funny, he thought, how you could spend your whole life preparing for grief and then when it finally hit you, you could realise that no amount of preparation could have stopped it from hurting.

“Remember, Rich, men don’t cry. That’s what separates the boys from the men.” His father’s voice would echo in his head, so much so that at the funeral he did not shed a tear.

Life in the house after the fact became difficult, conversations with his mother would usually follow the same format:

“How are you sweetheart?” Richie’s mother would ask, her voice practically dripping with concern.

“Same as always, mom.” He would respond.

“Things will be okay, you know that don’t you? You understand?”

Frankly, Richie did not understand. Sometimes depression feels like you’re being buried alive, and he didn’t quite understand how by ‘hoping’ that he would manage to drag his battered body out of that grave.

“I know, mom.”

When his work in progress was finally discovered by his mom, he decided it was time to move out. A book written by Richie wasn’t the surprise, but the content was so bleak that he feared driving his own mother to suicide if she read the whole thing.

A young(er) Tozier would hop on the first plane to London, and eventually remain there, hoping for some inspiration for a book, and some inspiration to live. That was how he found Soho Square, and the specific bench that he found himself sat at every weekday at 1:30pm precisely.

It was on that bench that he found the inspiration that he needed for his book. A bookworm from a young age, Richie had always found comfort in reading. Although in the playground he was physically alone, he had the best times of his life that way. He could be a fierce pirate, a dragon slayer, a superhero from a comic book that he had read or even a child on an adventure in old little England.

Reading, he concluded from a young age, was a wonder that was not equally matched by any other activity. To young Tozier, there was no greater joy in the world than reading, as it allowed him, even for a moment, to become someone who he was not, and gave him friends that he thought he never had.

Whilst at home, in the real world, Mom and Dad were always facing divorce, and Richie could be beaten for breathing, he could always escape to somewhere better. Richie Tozier’s Adventures in Wonderland were far less glamorous than Alice’s, but they were his happy place. His home.

As Richie sat on the very same bench in his new home, far away from the terrors of his old house in Maine, he pulled out his red leather bound notebook and continued to write.


	2. Eddie.

**2**   
**Eddie.**

Eddie Kaspbrak had always had what most people would call ‘a rough time of it.’

Of course, a rough time of it can refer to any number of things or happenings. However, if it ever meant addictive tendencies, abandonment and the inability to get their shit together, then it definitely applied to Eddie.

In fact, he was sure that waking up in a random flat in London, naked and with his wallet completely cleared out, was the opposite of having his shit together. Eddie groaned and held his left hand to his temple, as if he could magic away the killer hangover that was currently attacking his head.

“Where the fuck am I?” Eddie mumbled, as if the answer would magically appear out of thin air.

As he rose to his feet, he managed to find a light switch just above the headboard of the bed. Turning it on, he hissed in pain as his eyes adjusted to the bright light. God, if he was bad now, he was really going to suffer at work.

“Oh shit!” He shouted, suddenly emboldened by the realisation he was late, his anxiety about the strangers house fading away.

Ignoring the figure in the bed sleeping next to him- although, Eddie noted, if they were undisturbed by the ruckus he caused just then, they could sleep for England- Eddie threw on a button up shirt, his underwear and jeans from the night before. If he had a second to pause, he probably would’ve laughed at how younger him would have freaked out about that.  
Cleanliness used to be his strong point, after all.

He paused for a second to look at the forlorn figure in front of him. Tired eyes, black hair sticking out in all directions, a bad posture that a mother would have a fit at, and as it stood, completely and utterly broke.

“I could’ve sworn these things make you look worse than you actually look. At least I hope so.” Eddie chuckled to himself as he put on his shoes and headed out the door.

In his rush, it was understandable that Eddie should forget that he was in an entirely new city. Even more understandable then, that he should go into meltdown mode when he realised that he was in Central London, entirely alone and out of pocket.

Momentarily squatting down on the pavement, Eddie covered his mouth with his hands as he let out a scream, which went unnoticed by the busy pedestrians of London Town. He was yet to realise that even if it were a quiet day, no one would stop to help him. Such is the nature of London, after all.

“Everything could happen here, and no one would notice.” His mother used to say.

15 years later, she was proven right.

Of course, for everything she was right about, she had about 5 things to be proven wrong about:

“You’ll regret those.” On his array of tattoos, paid for in little cash in dingy tattoo parlours squeezed behind housing estates.

“School is the most important time of your life..” When Eddie was considering dropping out, and finally:

“This is the last time. I’ll do better this time.” That was the last time his mother ever made a promise like that.

Why make promises that you would inevitably break?

Eddie tried so hard over the 15 years that had followed, to forge the bad parts of his mother, if not her entirely, but he couldn’t.

He had the same sad eyes, the same smile- although she smiled so rarely that he wasn’t sure if this was true anymore- and the same depressive tendencies.

It always felt as if he been dealt a bad hand of cards from the beginning. Of course, you may wish away a bad 17 years all your life, but Eddie would be burdened with carrying the regret of what could have been. The man he could have been had he not been shot in the legs before he started running the race.

The only comfort a young Kaspbrak could get as a child was dreaming of the impossible. He used to have so many adventures in his head; of Cheshire cats, of the most magnificent creatures in fiction books, and of being safe. He would close his eyes at night and, not for the first time, dream of somewhere better than home.

Of course, Eddie didn’t dream of those things anymore. He was far too old for child’s play.

That was precisely how he ended up growing up far too early, hopping on a plane from country to country, trying to find himself and make up for what he had lost. Of course, he never did. He never understood the middle class teenagers who went on journeys of self discovery. He couldn’t even discover who he used to be.

Eddie found himself stumbling through the streets of London, suddenly aware of the biting cold. Goddammit, he thought, he knew how to pick his adventures.

Wandering aimlessly through the crowds of tourists and workers of London, Eddie made a sharp left when he reached an old run down church and found himself in a square. It was the kind of place you’d see in old History books about England, the old 17th century style building at the opposite head of the square remained untouched by time.

Aside from the kids playing in the grass centre, it was virtually empty. The only two other people were Eddie Kaspbrak, currently broke, friendless and with no passport and Richie Tozier. Richie, currently with his head buried in his notebook, scribbling away furiously as if the world would cease to be in any second, hardly noticed Eddie sit down next to him.


End file.
